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How Drug Treatment Helps Reduce the Spread of HIV-AIDS

Hundreds of thousands of people contract HIV-AIDS as a result of drug use. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this and the disease will likely result in death. While there are medications available that can prolong life, these can be extremely expensive and aren't guaranteed to work. If you know someone who does drugs or if you do them yourself, you need to consider getting treatment now. This can possibly prevent you or your loved ones from contracting HIV in the future.

How do Drug Users Contract HIV-AIDS?

Dirty Needles

First you should think about all the millions of people who do drugs today. Meth, heroin, marijuana, inhalants, depressants, etc., are all just a few of the drugs out there. Many people inject these with needles that are dirty and shared between many different people. When this happens, blood is transferred from one person to another. If just one of those people had HIV, the rest of the people using the needle after would get it.

Dirty needles account for a large number of individuals who contract this disease. Most users only care about getting high and don't take the time to find clean needles. Think about it, do you think someone who needs a fix is going to go get a syringe from a supply store? Most won't even take a few seconds to sanitize the needles because they just aren't in the right frame of mind.

Sexual Contact

When individuals are under the influence of drugs, they will be in a completely different state of mind. Not only will they feel different, they will see hallucinations and do things they normally wouldn't when they were sober. An altered state of mind is one of the biggest reasons why people make bad decisions when they are on drugs. This can mean someone spending all their money or being intimate with someone they don't even know.

Unfortunately, sexual contact is another big reason why so many people who do drugs contract HIV-AIDS. Not only are they sleeping with multiple partners, they also aren't using any protection. Both of these things combined can mean the risk is extremely high, especially within groups of drug users. Many people don't even realize they have the disease, which is another reason why it's so easily spread from one person to another.

How can Treatment Help?

Getting off of drugs is not going to cure someone who already has HIV-AIDS. While this is disheartening to those people, it should still not hinder them from getting help. Just one person who has the disease could spread it to hundreds of people because they didn't get off of drugs. For example, one person might shoot up with syringes, which are passed from one person to another throughout the day. In addition to this, they might have sexual contact with many people throughout the month. All of those people would likely contract HIV, meaning it would only continue to spread from there.

If more people got treatment for their drug addictions, this disease would be far less of a problem than it is today. While HIV would still spread, it would decrease as the number of drug users decrease. This would be a result of fewer carriers spreading to fewer people. While this would take a while, it is definitely possible when awareness is spread. The more people know the more likely they will be to seek treatment and protect themselves.

How can You Help?

If you want to help make a difference with the spread of HIV-AIDS, especially within your community, it's important to become an active member of different groups. Each and every community has drug awareness programs; you just might not realize it. When you join these groups you can educate youth, talk to individuals in rehab or even change your entire career.

When more people are aware of the consequences of drug use and how they can contract HIV, the users out there will decrease. Drugs and alcohol are the biggest reasons why the spread of HIV has become an epidemic. People aren't making sober judgments or thinking about what the consequences will be. By teaching people you know and even those you don't know all about this, you can play a part in helping.